Perhaps these dreams are Toxic, perhaps they cost too much
by Just-LiveLaughLove
Summary: Dean has been through it a thousand times, the guilt that wrings itself around his throat; making him ludicrously weak to regret. Beacuse his 'what if' simply begins by asking, wondering, exploring the question: 'what if Sam was never born'. Dean can't help wondering what life he would have lived without the responsibility of his brother weighing on his shoulders


**Perhaps these dreams are toxic  
**** - perhaps they cost too much**

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There are those fleeting moments, where Dean will spare the thought (as impossible as it may be), of what '_it'_would have been like.

Allows himself the far-too guilty pleasure of imaging the colorful, tempting possibilities of _'what if?"._  
He's been through it a thousand times.  
Delves into his own untouchable world of imagination; saved for the green of his eyes and his eyes only.

He will indulge in the simplicity of what his mind will conjure, what realm would offer its mound of artistry to be susceptible under the touch of his golden, weightless fingers.  
That he himself can traipse through its beginnings and its endings.  
Manipulating and crafting its facade, its depth… its' very meaning.

When he awakens, and sees the world he survives in, (doesn't live in, no. There's too much death to call it living), guilt will fall in through his curtain of discrete dreaming.  
Drain out the intimacy and fragile solidarity of his wishful thinking.

The real world will bleed in, bringing with it shades of blood and hollow eyes that belong to the woeful voices that chant in his ears, like the march of an army.

Then comes the name.  
This name will skin him live.

_Samuel Winchester._

Because, his 'what if' lifestyle, his phantom dreams of coated atrocities based on his wishful thinking never include his brother.  
His 'what if' simply begins by asking, wondering, _exploring_the question:

'what if Sam was never born'.

.

.

.

Immediately his mothers' laughter fills his four year old ears. Silver, he thinks.  
Sterling silver.  
Strong and genuine and beautiful. A gem for an angel.

A mother to a boy. His mother and his mother alone.

In this world, where the white picket fence outside are the gates to his own child kingdom, she would surpass the age of 28. Because a baby didn't swell in her belly. A child didn't cry in its rocker with the devil by his side.

A child didn't cry, (unintentionally) luring the fearless heart to a misguided, unnecessary murder, (she didn't simply die, oh no. She suffered). A child, her child- Sam Winchester would not have been the means to her end.

Dean would have been her only son. She would have peppered him with words of assurance. Soothed his quickening heart by simply taking his hand in her warm, delicate fingers- chase away the monsters (Ones he faces today, in a world of secrecy) that lurked under his woody the cowboy quilted bed.

She would have read to him, sent him on his way to dreaming.  
Making promises only a mother knew how to keep.

He would not be her burden, he would not be a hero (at least not in real life), he would be her miracle and she would be his.

.

.

.

He thinks of the girl in high school, the one with the golden hair and sympathetic blue eyes. She has no name; his memory never retained it, in the other life, where he did meet and delve into her, he was taught not to get attached. So her name was simply the guess of the past. (In real life; love was never worthy of time: _"there would be no life with her" _his father would say_)._

The face resonates the implication of care free spirits. What a boy his age would devour.  
Relish in the taste.  
Her face illuminated a sense of freedom. Fun.

He remembers his hands searching the wondrous secrets girls kept hidden from boys for the better part of their innocent lives. Remembers kissing her, deep and wanting. Lips tasting the flesh of forbidden fruits (that would have only seemed like a fairy tale to him. Because this Dean, the one with iron clamps bound across his wrists- knows too well the Dyer effects of forbidden delicacies).

He distinctly remembers the padding at her fingers, gently caressing and touching and oh- She knew well what made his knees week. Breasts against a hard chest. Thighs pressing harder-snaking across his waist. They continued to venture, roaming lower and lower further and further. Taking each other until all that was left was a sheet of sweat and heavy breaths.  
Doe eyed teens and foamy dreams.

_She was a nice ride. Or, maybe she's the one?_

And that's all it would have to ever be for him; Simple sex. Or even love in its most vulnerable and delicate form. He would not be plagued with a senseless graze of guilt that coats its way up each vertebrae at a time.

_Will they find her now that I have had her? Will she die because she met me?_

He wouldn't have death nipping at his hills. There wouldn't be a weight forcing him down into the earth. Deeper and deeper- so deep the fire from hell would lick at the soles of his feet.

Because it would be in another life, where the world would be relying on a savior. It would be in another life where Dean Winchester was that heroin.

It would be in another life- a life where Sam existed.

.

.

.

In a world, where two men-brothers, were not the vessels to two archangels, Dean would have dated a nurse and downed a beer in the early breath of morning wake after kissing her goodbye.

In a world where two archangels-brothers, did not require the attire of two men-brothers, Dean would have considered the purchase of a ring. A question hidden beneath its glistening surface.

But this Dean, chained to destiny by the wrist of his hands and the ankles at his feet would have dragged his weary body out of bed and trudged himself over to the bathroom. All so he can look in the mirror to see which man he would rather be.

That's what the mirror holds. Not the same eyes, no. Your eyes are never exactly the same as the day before. Just like how an emotion can trace across the slanting curves of your lips, it shades your eyes in pinks and blues and goldenrod dew. Everything makes a difference.

And today he feels lonely.

Today he needs his brother.

.

.

.

Sam's nursery would have been a play-room for the only child of Dean Winchester.  
The green carpet would drink up the ambiguity of life, hidden it from this small boy.

But, in this world, there is a gaping hole the nine year old can't quite interpret. It etches itself in the centre of his chest. He is weightless there in that sensitive void, but – the feeling of illegibility, feels wrong.

His loyalty does lie somewhere, but the answer veils itself in mystery. Lets the words '_you have a responsibility'_echo in the recesses of his mind.

Leaves him searching.

He had a responsibility. To who, this boy is not too sure. The thought plagues him with questions that make his hands tremble.

He hears the reverberations of a Childs cry. It transitions into a man yelping. There's a weight in the boys palms, far too heavy to be the buzz light year that flies in his hands.

Warmth, almost like a large body, lulling into weakness- falls into his hands.  
He catches the man, hand cradling his back. Hand drawing away warm and sticky.

When the baby-Dean looks down, deep dark red stains his small fingers.

.

.

.

He would roam the planes of his wife- nurses' stomach, splaying hands against the curve of her ass. Draw her close and take her completely.

But when they kiss, they don't seem to fit.

Not the way someone did when he kissed _her_ goodbye. Tasting her blood on her lips as she held her insides in her ashen white hands.  
_This_girl deserved a thousand more kisses and he gave her only one.

Jo,

Blonde hair catching the flickering light of her tattered diner's lamps. She fits the picture though, with tough green eyes. Square set of shoulders, pushed back.  
Promising a challenge with everything she has to offer.

He remembers the barrel of a gun, pressed tenderly against his back. Like the reassuring pressure of a lover. Remembers snatching the power from her hands, turning swiftly to meet a pretty face in a dangerous world of horror.

In a moment of thieving for authority, he saw a flicker of hope_. Maybe this world isn't damned after all._

"I'm Dean" he greeted.

An incredulous look she wore so well, she extended a hand and shook his firmly, certainly a challenge. "Jo."

If Sam Winchester had never existed, this girl, with wild eyes and sugary laughs would never have blessed his life.

Moments like _these,_he wonders, just how lucky he was.

.

.

.

"Hamburger and fries" a woman holds the platter. Apron tied snuggly against her plump frame.

"That's me," Dean Quirks.

The woman's blue eyes widen when they fall on the oldest Winchester boy.

"You sure you need it?"

Deans smile falters as she places the dish down without another word. He looks to Sam for reassurance. His younger brother only falls into a fit of laughter. It dances around him and Dean realizes just how long it has been since he has seen him smile.

Heard his baby brother laugh, deep from the pit of his belly.  
He wonders, in that moment just how much he would miss that smile if he really did live in a world where his younger brother did not exist.

He remembers _that_night.

The night he found the whereabouts of a missing hunter.  
The cold nip of the frosty air prickling his flesh as he trekked up a hill in search of his brother.

He remembers a weight lifting off his chest when Sam's tall statures appeared in the distance. Unscathed. Unharmed. Wearing a smile, that said so much before the world spun still. _I'm safe_.

_..._

"Dean! Dean!" a twelve year old who knew of monsters rushed out into the yard. Frantically searching for his brothers' whereabouts. 'Could the things his father hunts be after Sam?'

_His heart sighs a relief when a five year old Samuel Winchesters cradles a swollen knee._

_"Dean!" he says it again. Calmness coursing through him at the sight of his older brother coming to his rescue. Dean crouches before the baby boy. Finds his eyes before analyzing the gash in his flesh._

_"Are you ok? What happened?"_

_Sam stifles a cry, "I tried to climb the fence and I fell."_

_"Why were you climbing the fence?" Dean questions firmly. It's much too dangerous for him to be out in the world. Especially with what lurks in the shadows._

_"I wanted to go after Dad. He is always leaving"_

_Dean's hands seize their meticulous movement of applying ointment to the wound, "why?"_

_"I don't like being alone. What happens if bad guys try to hurt me?"_

_Dean grips his brothers arm, "they won't" he says._

_The little intelligent continues, eyes hidden beneath half closed lids. "But other kids are always hurt when they are left alone"_

_Dean rips open a band aid, and responds half heartedly, (almost the way a grown man might speak to hush away the fear) "you have one advantage that other boys don't have"_

_"what's that?" Sam speaks into his drawn up knees. Watching Dean fix the band-aid in place._

_"Me" Dean answers simply, his words laced with an undying pledge, "as long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you"_

...

Sam's face suddenly contorted, and Dean watched why it twisted in agony.

He watched his brother get stabbed in front of his very eyes.

To this day he remembers the searing cold blade being plunged into Sam Winchesters spine.  
Feels the pierce of death ebbing itself into the bloodstream of his 'kid' brother. Remembers how his own heart had stumbled. Tripped.  
Bled with a blinding white hot fury of hate and loss and emptiness.

_This wasn't meant to happen_. Dean whimpered. Calling for Sam's eyes. Looking for the semblance of strength in the deep green, trying to urge Sam to keep breathing.

To fight- like they have always been taught to do.

_Like warriors_, Sam once said with a venomous loathing for the life he lived.  
_What happened to being a kid_? He didn't say… but Dean had heard him. Felt the trigger whisper a name before the bullet lunged into his chest.

Dean's hands cupped the chin of a dying Sam. _You were meant to get married_. He had spared the possibility of a dream, promising Sam with his eyes, that that moment wouldn't be his last. -

(that it wouldn't end this way, no not for Sam Winchester. Not for his brother).

- Grasping onto hope like a feather filled pillow. Soft and warm and endlessly wonderful.

_You were meant to grow old_. He had cried. Chest heaving, soul grieving.

He recalls empty words falling into a hollow void. His words dispersing what extent of happiness a heroin was allowed to experience.

He remembers his heart failing when Sam's body fell limp in his arms. Drew his hands away with hot sticky blood coating his fingers.

At that moment Dean needed the faith Sam advocated. But nothing came. Save for hollow eyes and unfulfilled promises.

That night Sam Winchester died.  
And along with him, to be scripted on the gravestone would have read Dean Winchester. '_Because nothing else matters but family'_...

...

Then it hits him.

Like a racket of undisclosed misfortunes. Like a bolt of lightning striking a tree; bringing it to an enchanting life of orange and red streamers before plummeting it into death.

A life without Sam Winchester, is a life without meaning.

And somehow somewhere, the tree grows green again.

He takes a bite at his hamburger and forgets what was eating at his mind earlier.

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**fin **

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thanks for reading (if you got this far)

constructive Criticism helps a great ordeal  
was it too long?  
too boring?


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